Enteroviruses, members of the Picornaviridae family, are a group of single-stranded RNA viruses. They reproduce initially in the gastrointestinal tract, which usually does not result in intestinal symptoms. Rather, they cause diseases only after migrating to other organs, such as the nervous system, heart, and lung.
Examples of enteroviruses include coxsackievirus, echovirus, and poliovirus. Clinical manifestations of enteroviral infection include summer grippe (i.e., nonspecific febrile illness), generalized disease of newborns (including myocarditis, low blood pressure, hepatitis, and meningitis), aseptic meningitis encephalitis, pleurodynia (i.e., Bornholm's disease), myocarditis, pericarditis, exanthems, hand-foot-and-mouth disease, herpangina, acute hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, pneumonia and other respiratory diseases, myositis or muscle inflammation, arthritis, and acute kidney inflammation.